A Little Princess Chapter 10 Summary

The Indian Gentleman

It's dangerous for Ermengarde and Lottie to come visit Sara though, because they'll all get into a lot of trouble if they're ever found out.

So Sara goes about her days and does all her errands alone, scurrying around like a little beggar.

When she's walking home sometimes, she sees the Large Family, a family that lives near Miss Minchin's school.

There are eight children in the house, and they should obviously have their own reality show.

They're rich and happy. Sara makes up stories about them and gives them names. She calls them the Montmorencys.

One evening, some of the Montmorencys are going to a children's party. Guy Clarence, the five-year-old, stops and sees Sara.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a sixpence, and gives it to Sara because he thinks she's a beggar girl.

She tries to give it back but Guy Clarence insists that she keeps it.

She does, even though she feels proud and a little ashamed.

The Large Family rides away in their carriage and the other children ask Donald (which is Guy Clarence's real name) why he offered Sara his sixpence.

She may be a servant, but she doesn't seem much like a servant—she doesn't act or talk like one, anyway.

Sara takes the sixpence and wears it around her neck.

One night, she tells Emily that she can't take this anymore. Emily doesn't say anything. Obviously. Because she's a doll.

If she did start speaking, this would be a totally different kind of story.

Sara knocks Emily off the chair, says that she's nothing but a doll, and starts to cry.

But then she feels bad and picks Emily back up again.

One day, when coming home, she sees that someone is moving in to the house next door.

The furniture being brought in is from India, which Sara is very excited about.

As she's watching, she sees the father of the Large Family walk up to the house—and so she realizes that he must know whoever has moved in.

Exciting times!

That night, Becky says that an Indian gentleman has moved in and he's very rich and ill—and that the Large Family's father is his lawyer.

(Brain snack: "Indian" here doesn't mean that he's actually Indian. He's English. He's just been living in India, and probably made his fortune there. Confusing? Yes. But that was a really common way of referring to English people living in India.)

It turns out that the new next-door neighbor doesn't have a family, and one day he arrives with the father of the Large Family and a nurse and two men-servants.

Lottie says the man is yellow, but Sara corrects her and says that he's just very ill.